[Blood Bowl 04] - Rumble in the Jungle Read online

  A BLOOD BOWL NOVEL

  RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE

  Blood Bowl - 04

  Matt Forbeck

  (An Undead Scan v1.5)

  “Hi there, sports fans, and welcome to the Blood Bowl for tonight’s contest. You join us here with a capacity crowd, packed with members of every race from across the known world, all howling like banshees in anticipation of tonight’s game. Oh, and yes there are some banshees… Well, kick-off is in about two pages’ time, so we’ve just got time to go over to your commentator for tonight, Jim Johnson, for a recap on the rules of the game before battle commences. Good evening, Jim!”

  “Thank you. Bob! Well, good evening and boy, are you folks in for some great sporting entertainment. First of all though, for those of you at home who are unfamiliar with the rules, here’s how the game is played.

  “Blood Bowl is an epic conflict between two teams of heavily armed and quite insane warriors. Players pass, throw and run with the ball, attempting to get it to the other end of the field, the end zone. Of course, the other team must try and stop them, and recover the ball for their side. If a team gets the ball over the line into the opponents’ end zone it’s called a touchdown; the team that scores the most touchdowns by the end of the match wins the game. Of course, it’s not always as simple as that…”

  1

  For the life of him, Dunk Hoffnung couldn’t figure out what he was still doing on a Blood Bowl pitch. At the end of the last season, he’d led his team — the Bad Bay Hackers — all the way to the Blood Bowl championship. In the course of that, he’d found his true love, repaired his relationship with his brother, and saved the Empire from Khorne the Blood God.

  To top it all off, he’d reclaimed his family’s lost fortune, including the keep they’d once owned in Altdorf, the Empire’s capital. He had fame, friends, and more money than he would ever need. What else did he have to prove?

  Dunk had wrestled with these doubts several times over the past week, during the first round of the Spike! Magazine Tournament. Now, though, the game demanded his full attention, as the spiked ball sailed down out of the black night and into his arms, making him the primary target for the eleven armed and armoured dark elves playing for the Darkside Cowboys.

  “Hoffnung grabs the kick-off, and the final semi-final game of the tournament is underway!” Bob Buford’s voice rang out across the stadium over the Preternatural Address system. The crowd roared to answer him, its lust for blood feeding the volume.

  “Just listen to those fans!” Bob’s partner, Jim Johnson, chipped in. “There’s nothing like a pack of people screaming at the top of their lungs!”

  “Sounds like you’re talking about last night’s dinner,” the ogre Bob said to the vampire Jim. “Stop it! You’re making me drool!”

  Dunk scanned the situation downfield. Most of his team-mates — the ones in the yellow and green uniforms with the three-sword H logos on their helmets — raced ahead of him, converging to a point, trying to form a protective wedge behind which he could run. Meanwhile, the pale skinned elves in the black and blue uniforms came charging up the field, seeking to find a way past the Hackers’ linemen so they could rip Dunk’s heart from his chest.

  Dunk spun to the left and charged up behind his brother Dirk, pump faking a pass to the right. Only one of the Cowboys got fooled. He hesitated just long enough for Spinne to smash him to the ground, and then do a little dance on his helmet with her spiked shoes.

  “Oh, that’s gotta hurt!” Bob said. “I wonder if I could get her to do that to me after the game!”

  “Gee, Bob, don’t you think her boyfriend, Dunk, would object?”

  “Hey, if he wants to watch, he has to pay like everyone else!”

  “Really?”

  “Okay, I’ll let him in for half price, but just this once!”

  Dunk ignored the blather over the PA. He wondered if the Cowboys’ coach had paid the pair to say things to distract him. It didn’t strike him as something the Cowboys would do. Not that they wouldn’t cheat, they just wouldn’t be that subtle about it.

  Unfortunately, it worked. One of the Cowboys blazed straight past McGraw — one of the Hacker linemen — with not even a whisper of protest. Dunk gaped at the oncoming dark elf for a moment: the white dreadlocks flopping out from his helmet on all sides, the snarl on his perfect face, the muscles that were far too big to naturally fit across an elf’s shoulders.

  The things that drew his eye the most, though, were the long, glittering blades that jutted out from the steel bracers protecting the elf’s forearms. One of them was covered with fresh blood.

  Dunk knew then that McGraw was dead. If he didn’t move fast, he would share his team-mate’s fate. He would have liked to have called the man his friend, but he barely knew him. McGraw had made the team in the pre-tournament tryouts, just as Dunk had three years ago, and the only thing he could tell anyone about McGraw was that he thought Bloodweiser was like carbonated seal piss.

  “Whoa!” said Jim. “Looks like the newest Hacker is DOA. Er-Rel Towens dropped him without even a stutter in his step!”

  “I got dibs on that fountain of blood spurting from his neck!” said Bob. “The fresh stuff is best!”

  “Speaking of which, how’s that corpse tattooing campaign of yours coming along?” asked Jim.

  “The ‘Dead-On Label’? More coaches are going for it, especially once they see how much they can get for fresh kills on the open market. They pay for those players and have to get their value out of them somehow!”

  Dunk juked left again, and then raced to the right. The move faked Towens out of his left shoe, but he still kept after Dunk, snagging the green jersey with his long, thin fingers.

  Dunk twisted around, hoping to wrench his jersey from the elf’s grasp, but he just reeled him in instead. The Cowboy assassin slashed at Dunk with the blade stabbing from his free arm, and the Hacker thrower put up the only thing he had to block it: the ball.

  The edge of the blade skittered off the ball’s reinforced surface, its point gouging a long trail in the side of Dunk’s helmet. Dunk raised the ball before him again to fend off another slash, then another. A quick glance up the field told him he had to do something to lose this attacker soon, or the rest of the Cowboys would tackle him under a huge pile. If that happened, he’d take more jabs than a dartboard.

  Dunk took the ball in both hands and smashed it into Towens’s face. The dark elf glanced up at the last second and took the point of the ball right in his faceguard.

  And there it stuck.

  When Dunk tried to pull the ball back, it wouldn’t come. It had got wedged into the faceguard like an axe in an old oak. Try as he might, Dunk couldn’t wrest the thing loose.

  “Get it out!” Towens screamed. “For the hatred of all that’s unholy, get it out!”

  From the blood dribbling down the elf’s chest, Dunk guessed that the football was wedged in more than just the helmet. Towens let go of Dunk’s shirt and began to slash at the football with his blades. They were too long for him to stab the points into the pigskin, though, and the spikes and hide repelled his attempts to saw through them.

  Dunk reached for the ball again and grabbed on with both hands. He tried to plant a foot on the elf’s chest for leverage, but Towens slashed at him with his blades, and he leaped back.

  “Hold still, damn it, and I’ll get it out,” he said.

  Towens ignored Dunk’s pleas and charged straight at him, following the sounds of the thrower’s voice over the cheering of the crowd. Dunk stepped to the side like a matador and tripped Towens as he went by. The elf went face down into the Astrogranite, where the sp
ike on the other end of the ball stuck.

  It was about that time that the ogre showed up.

  M’Grash K’Thragsh crushed one Cowboy beneath a massive boot with serrated spikes, then tossed another clear into the stands on his way over to reach Dunk. The hapless dark elf went sailing into the first few rows, fans scattering like cockroaches before a torch. Once the player crunched into the stands, though, he disappeared under a swarm of them.

  Moments later, the Cowboy popped up on the upraised hands of the crowd, and Dunk saw him get body-passed straight towards the cheap seats at the top of the stadium. The sight sent a shudder through him as he remembered how the same thing had happened to him in his first game in this very stadium. The various awnings on the outside of the stadium had broken his fall, but the sausage vendor whose cart he’d crushed had beaten him hard enough to put him into a three-day coma.

  Dunk put those thoughts out of his head as the ogre stormed up towards him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Dunkel okay?” the massive, tusk-faced creature in the Hackers uniform asked.

  Dunk nodded at his friend. “Just get the ball.”

  M’Grash reached down to grab Towens by the back of the helmet, and there was a sickening snap. Dunk winced as the ogre handed him the ball with the helmet and head still attached to it. He’d got what he’d asked for, but not what he’d meant.

  “Oh!” Bob said. “That’s going to leave a mark!”

  “Grave ‘marker’, I think you mean!” said Jim. “So much for Towens renegotiating his contract, unless he plans to play for the Champions of Death! Coach Tomolandry always says any other team’s loss is his gain!”

  “What now, Dunkel?” M’Grash started to say. The ogre had a brain the size of Dunk’s fist, which was barely enough to make his body move, much less think of where to move it. He needed constant direction.

  “Charge!” Dunk said, pointing down the field towards the distant end zone.

  M’Grash knew the drill. He led the way in front of Dunk, tearing through any foes brave or stupid enough to challenge him, while Dunk carried the ball behind him and looked for an open catcher downfield. They’d run the same play hundreds if not thousands of times before. It was simple enough for even M’Grash to grasp it, and it worked.

  As they went, Dunk wrenched the football away from the helmeted head, and got up close behind M’Grash. Shielded by the ogre, he juggled the ball up under one arm and held Towens’s head out wide in his throwing hand.

  Before they got twenty yards down the field, though, M’Grash fell to his knees, grabbing at his helmet and screaming as if in horrible pain.

  Dunk wanted to check on his friend, but he knew that if he stopped moving the Cowboys would pulverise him. So, he scanned the pitch and spotted the team captain, a dark-skinned legend by the name of Rhett Cavre, kicking over a defender and breaking away. Unfortunately, he had two other dark elves converging on him, and a toss in that direction would be a sure interception.

  Dunk cocked back his arm and hurled Towens’s head in the man’s direction, hoping it would buy them a few minutes. Without even looking to see if Cavre caught the helmeted remains, Dunk rushed to M’Grash’s side. “Are you all right?”

  “Oh yes, my foolish friend,” M’Grash said, his voice thick with a Bretonnian accent. “I am better than ever.”

  Dunk knew instantly that something was wrong. He spun on his cleats to sprint off in the other direction. Before he could get away, though, a meaty hand reached out and grabbed him around his lower leg.

  M’Grash climbed to his knees, and Dunk got a good look at his eyes. They stood vacant, but for a horrible red glow. Dunk felt like someone had poured ice into his jock strap.

  The crowd cheered.

  “Interception!” Bob shouted.

  “You, on the other hand,” the ogre said in someone else’s voice, “are soon to be beyond all troubles.”

  Dunk wanted to scream, but he knew it would do no good. He tried to shake his leg free instead, but M’Grash’s grip only tightened on him as he laughed at Dunk’s pathetic attempt.

  “Live by the ogre, die by the ogre,” M’Grash said. “Words to be torn to pieces by.”

  Then Dunk knew what had happened. The Cowboys’ team owner and wizard, the legendary liche Berry Bones, must have used some kind of spell to take over the ogre’s mind. That put the undead spell slinger in the driver’s seat behind M’Grash’s monstrous body.

  Dunk lashed out with his free boot and caught the ogre between the eyes, smashing his nose into his face. M’Grash dropped the thrower and clutched at the blood flowing from his nostrils.

  “Ow!” M’Grash said. “You’d think that ogres would be immune from pain. They must just be too stupid to feel it.”

  Dunk grimaced at the mess he’d made of M’Grash’s face. He never wanted to hurt his friend, but the wizard had made it clear that his only other choice was to die. As the ogre reached for him again, he did the wise thing and fled.

  The crowd erupted in a cheer. “Touchdown, Cowboys!” said Jim.

  Dunk glanced up at the Jumboball, a massive crystal ball through which wizards from the Extraordinary Spellcasters Prognosticated News Network (ESPNN) broadcast images of the game, and spotted a Darkside Cowboy spiking Towens’s head in the end zone.

  “Wait a minute, Jim,” Bob said. “The referee in the end zone is waving that off. Seems that’s not the ball ‘Itchy’ Mirvin had in his hands, but it looks like he’s finally secured that starting position over Towens!”

  The crowd roared, and Dunk didn’t need to look at the Jumboball to know that every finger in the stadium was pointing at him. He brought the ball up from where he’d been trying to hide it under his arm and cradled it in a proper football hold. The roar grew louder.

  Dunk could feel M’Grash’s breath on his neck: hot, steamy, and smelling of the insanely spicy sauce of chimera wings. He risked a glance back and saw his friend reaching for him, the red glow still dancing alongside murder in his eyes.

  Dunk put everything he had into a final burst of speed, but it wasn’t enough. The ogre’s legs were too long, and he pounded along too fast.

  Dunk had raced against M’Grash in practice and had always beaten the ogre in a flat sprint. He’d long suspected his friend had been throwing the races to him, but then he’d realised what was going on. Dumb as he was, M’Grash didn’t trust the ground under his feet. He ran slower than he could have because he wanted to make sure he didn’t fall.

  Whoever was in M’Grash’s head now didn’t share that fear. Assuming it was Bones, he had the ogre’s legs pumping as hard as he could.

  Dunk stuck the ball out in his left hand to fake going in that direction, then cut right. M’Grash tried to follow him, but tripped on his massive feet. As he went tumbling forward, he reached out with his humongous hands spread, and one gigantic paw closed around Dunk’s leg again.

  The pair somersaulted forward and flipped more times than Dunk could count. His head rattling around in his helmet almost knocked him senseless. His years of training helped him hold on to the ball despite the fact he almost lost his lunch.

  They rolled to a rest at the foot of a tree, and for a moment Dunk couldn’t figure out how they’d managed to find themselves outside the stadium. Then he heard Edgar’s voice.

  “What the bloody hell’s this then?” the treeman in the Hackers uniform asked as he leaned over Dunk and M’Grash. “Aren’t you two supposed to be on the same team?”

  M’Grash glared up at the treeman and roared.

  Dunk waved at Edgar until he caught his wide, green eyes, and then stabbed a finger at the ogre, who still had his leg in his fist. “Timber!” Dunk yelled.

  The treeman recognised the call and executed the play perfectly. He put his branches up tall, held himself rigid, which wasn’t hard as treemen don’t bend well in the first place, and tipped himself over onto the ogre.

  M’Grash yelped in surprise and then pain as Edgar toppled over onto him, crushing the ogre ben
eath the treeman’s bulk. M’Grash’s hand let go of Dunk as he struggled to reach back to grab Edgar and pull him from his back. The ogre’s muscle-bound arms didn’t stretch that way though. He was stuck.

  “By all the dark gods!” M’Grash said. “Get him off! Make it stop!”

  Dunk scrambled to his feet and saw at least half of the Darkside Cowboys converging on him. After seeing how he’d tricked them into destroying the most important part of their star catcher’s corpse, they were out for revenge as much as for the ball. Since he had both, he made a doubly attractive target.

  Dunk decided his best bet was to halve his lure. With so many of the Cowboys coming at him, the Hackers’ catchers were open. Cavre stood waving his hands in the end zone, an easy score, but Spinne jumped up and down on the opposite side of the field from Dunk. He cocked back his arm and fired a pass off at Spinne.

  The Cowboys rushing towards Dunk watched the ball spiral through a perfect arc over their heads and land in Spinne’s outstretched hands. She held it high and waved it at them, taunting them, then bent over and smacked the ball on her rump. The crowd erupted at the display of cockiness, and the Cowboys switched their attention from Dunk to Spinne.

  “Wow!” Jim said. “How many times do you see a Blood Bowl team pick getting the ball over sheer spite?”

  “That’s what makes the Cowboys one of the most profitable teams out there! Coach Bill Per-Sells’ ruthless fiscal discipline drills this into his players’ heads: It’s not about blood! It all comes down to the bottom line!”

  “Plus, Schönheit did a masterful job of making them mad at her. If you have to choose between revenge for a team-mate or revenge for yourself, there’s no contest!”

  For the briefest moment, Dunk feared for Spinne, but he felt the same way every time she stepped on to the pitch with him. He’d got over it, mostly. He never liked putting her in danger, but she’d made it clear she expected him to treat her like an equal. In any case, he’d needed a distraction so he could deal with M’Grash.